Ag Notebook for March 31

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Efforts to save a vital aquifer ... Threatened by another summer of crop-shriveling drought, Kansans are watching a bold experiment unfold in Sheridan County, population 2,556, a sliver of the state’s northwest corner.

On lands dominated by agriculture, locals have agreed to across-the-board cuts to water use.

The state of Kansas didn’t order the cuts, nor did a regional entity. Rather, at a time when states and locals are jockeying for water, stakeholders in the 100 square-mile “high priority” (meaning particularly parched) zone of Northwest Kansas Groundwater District 4 reached a consensus to reduce groundwater pumping by 20 percent over the next five years. They are gambling on short-term wants for a longer-term need — to preserve the aquifer their lives depend upon.

Sheridan’s plan is just one of many major efforts to fend off a slow-moving disaster with national implications: The High Plains Aquifer, which feeds some of the world’s most productive croplands, is running dry.

The aquifer, also called the Ogallala, is one of the world’s largest underground sources of freshwater. It stretches 174,000 square miles through the middle of the country from South Dakota to Northwest Texas, touching parts of Kansas and five other states, watering more than one-quarter of all irrigated acreage in the U.S. and some of world’s largest grain cattle feedlots. The Ogallala also provides drinking water to four of every five people living above it.

For decades, farmers and others have been slurping up groundwater far faster than nature can recharge it.

— McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Not running dry yet ... State water officials say results of a Colorado River basin study do not support the conclusion there is no more water in the river to develop.

After the Bureau of Reclamation released the study last year, environmental groups have portrayed it as meaning the Colorado River is out of water, but that’s not the case, said Jennifer Gimbel, executive director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

“What’s important about it is that it’s a planning study that’s meant to be a tool for folks as they look at the river,” Gimbel told the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District board last week. “You can play it any way you want it, and some have. They say, ‘a pipeline is impossible,’ or ‘we’re running out of water.’”

In reality, the lower basin states in the Colorado River Compact (Arizona, California and Nevada) have used their full allocation of water, while upper basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) still could claim water from the river.

“The lower basin is done with its compact allocation, and on occasion they use some of ours,” she said.

Ted Kowalski, who specializes in Colorado River issues for the CWCB, pointed to Colorado’s own studies which found that up to 900,000 acre-feet annually within Colorado could be allocated.

The states have been working cooperatively to manage the risk of shortages, which have never occurred under the compact, Kowalski said.

— The Pueblo Chieftain

Feedyards, farms and flows ... Three Arkansas River basin projects gained approval last week from the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

A new water line for the Ordway Feedyard, bank stabilization on the Frost Ranch on Fountain Creek and a study of historic flows and diversions were approved.

The Ordway Feedyard received a $275,000 grant and $2.5 million loan for a $3.2 million project to complete a 10.5-mile pipeline. The pipeline would provide fire protection, as well as saving about 800 acre-feet of water, said Alan Hamel, CWCB board member.

The new pipeline would replace a gravity-flow pipeline from Lake Henry with a system that pumps the water uphill. The feedlot needs as much water as a city of 5,500 people would require for its 65,000 head of cattle. It’s the third-largest employer in the county and has a $50 million impact annually on the local economy. It was built in 1972, but the owners subsequently sold off most of the water rights to large cities.

The Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District received $105,000 for a bank stabilization project on the Frost Ranch on Fountain Creek in El Paso County. The project would demonstrate methods that other landowners along the creek could use to reduce erosion and sedimentation.

The total project is about $160,000.

— The Pueblo Chieftain

Longhorn cattle and Columbus ... According to a study by University of Texas researchers, longhorns are direct descendants of cattle Christopher Columbus brought to the New World on his second voyage in 1493.

Those cattle were the first in the New World, and their descendants arrived in what would become Texas near the end of the 17th-century, according to the study, which was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most of the Longhorn genome is descended from aurochs, the ancestor of domestic cattle that lived in the Middle East 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, the research showed.

The other 15 percent comes from other ancient aurochs in India, whose descendants have a hump at the back of the neck.

As Moors moved from the Middle East through Northern Africa and into the Iberian peninsula from the eighth to the 13th centuries A.D., they brought cattle that mixed with European breeds, researchers said.

All those influences come together in the cattle of the Iberian peninsula,” researchers said.

In the New World, most of the cattle went feral and adapted with characteristics to help them survive the hot, dry conditions, such as becoming leaner and growing longer horns for defense, researchers said.

After the Civil War, Texans started rounding up longhorns to supply beef to the rest of the country, researchers said.

Today, of course, longhorn can be seen on ranches throughout Texas and roaming the sidelines of UT football games.